Role of Youth

[pic] Prepared by: Jennifer Corriero Date of Release:January 2004 Lead Organization: TakingITGlobal Special Thanks: Advisors: Professor David Wheeler, PhD Joseph Amati, Masters Student Ellen Ratchye, Research Analyst, Fallon; Shelley Smith and Robert Bernard, DCODE Technology Support: Martin Kuplens-Ewart Data analysis and research support: Jacob Bleakley, Noor Alibhai, Hugh Switzer Final Edit: Huss Banai and Michael FurdykTable of Contents: |1 |Executive Summary |3 | | | | | |2 |Introduction |5 | | | | | |2. 1 |Demographic Force |5 | |2. |Democracy on the Rise |5 | |2. 3 |Culture of Leadership |6 | |2. 4 |A Shift in Power Dynamics |7 | |2. 5 |TakingITGlobal Online Community and Vision |8 | |2. |Youth as Key Stakeholders |9 | |2. 7 |Youth as Engaged Citizens |10 | |2. 8 |From Student to Teacher |10 | |2. 9 |Young Employees as a Source of Innovation |11 | |2. 10 |The Interactive Consumer |12 | |2. 1 |The Need for a Holistic Perspective on Youth |13 | | | | | |3 |Role of Youth S urvey: Key Objectives |14 | | | | | |4 |Role of Youth Survey: Methodology |15 | | | | | |4. |Promotion of Survey |16 | |4. 2 |Analysis of Survey Results |17 | |4. |Demographic Profile of Respondents |20 | | | | | |5 |Defining Youth |22 | | | | | |6 |Perceptions and Attitudes Towards Youth |26 | | | | | |7 |Issues of Importance to Youth |29 | | | | | |8 |Participation in Decision-Making |31 | | | | | |9 |Factors Influencing the Changing Roles of the Youth |34 | | | | | |10 |Youth as Agents of Change |37 | | | | | |11 |Conclusion |40 | | | | | |12 |General References |42 | 1. Executive SummaryThis report is the outcome of a larger process, building on months of reading and research of secondary materials, years of personal experiences meeting with and understanding the issues and perspectives of young people around the world. This research seeks to demonstrate that globally, young people today have more power and potential to create change than any previous generation of y outh. It seeks to discover the ways in which young people define themselves, how they are perceived by society, how they are best engaged in decision-making, and the role of technology in facilitating the shifting role of youth. This report is based on a survey designed by Jennifer Corriero, based on five prevalent categories: Defining Youth, Perceptions and Attitudes towards Youth, Youth Participation in Decision-Making, The Role of Technology, and Youth as Change Agents.Conducted in partnership with an international NGO, TakingITGlobal (TIG), the electronic survey was promoted and filled out by over 1,400 respondents, after which qualitative and quantitative questions were separated, organized, grouped, and analyzed, with the assistance of a number of individuals. Finally, this report was created to communicate the values and trends underlying the statistics and statements of respondents from around the world. The question of how youth is defined resulted in an interesting array o f suggestions. Age led with over half of the responses, followed by suggestions that youth represents personality characteristics or outlooks on life. A young female in India suggests that youth are those who are vivacious, full of energy† – people who â€Å"want to make a mark in life†. The idea of youth being a life stage between dependant and independent was another major grouping of responses, suggesting that youth are â€Å"starting to enjoy freedom for the first time†, according to a young man from Zimbabwe. As the perceptions and attitudes towards youth were investigated, it was discovered that the majority of youth (62. 3%) have a lot of reasons for hope for the future. In regions such as Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, a stronger sense of optimism could perhaps be attributed to the need for a positive outlook to survive in many of the developing countries in those regions.Consumer culture was consistently felt around the world to have too much influence of today’s youth, according to 76% of respondents. Education was seen as meaningful and important by 89% of survey participants, with 62. 2% feeling that youth are not equipped with the skills they require for jobs. Education, employment, friends, music and various social issues were stated as the top areas of concern and interest of youth within their communities. Sustainability only made it into the top 10 in Africa and Asia, suggesting that the rest of the world has yet to make sustainable living a priority, or even something that people are aware and confronted with as an important issue.Employment was in the top 3 in every region, and was first in South America, with many young people expressing concerns about ensuring that they have the necessary skills and experiences to be employed in their field of interest at a sustainable wage. As youth participation in decision-making was explored, it was discovered that the highest area of youth participation takes plac e within local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), with national NGOs close behind. Youth were least involved with national governments, which in most countries have yet to engage in meaningful strategies to encourage or facilitate youth participation, evidenced by the low voter turnout rates amongst youth, especially in North America.As Jesse Ventura, governor of Minnesota put it once on CNN â€Å"Youth don’t vote because they say politicians don’t care about their issues. Politicians don’t care about their issues because youth don’t vote! † It appears that NGOs have the best relationships with youth and thus are best positioned to meaningfully engage youth in various political processes. Respondents were very positive about the role of technology in transforming the role of youth in society and organizations. The majority see technology as an enabler for information to be shared and meaningful communication to be had. A variety of concerns wer e also brought up such as the digital divide, and how technology helps those who have access to it.Many examples were highlighted discussing the various ways that young people have made a meaningful impact in their communities and how they would change or improve the world, their countries and the role of youth in their communities. Overall, the sample of youth in this survey uncovered an optimistic, forward-looking generation encompassing young of age and youth-minded individuals. They are comfortable with and enabled by technological progress and change, interested in engaging in local and global decision-making, and they are already having significant impacts in their communities, countries, regions, and around the world. They want to be educated, they recognize gaps in their skills, and in many cases they can clearly identify the needs of not just themselves but of their peers.The sample was respectful of the wisdom of the elders that have led them to where they are, but also re ady and willing for the challenges that await them as they mature and discover the complexities of our global ecosystem. 2. Introduction Young people growing up today have far more power and potential to create change than any previous generation of youth growing up. Much of this shift is a direct result of the information revolution and access to opportunities that have been provided to people of all ages, especially to those growing up in the information age. This report will discuss prevalent demographic and political trends, the nature of youth in today’s global information society, and will provide reflections on the changing roles and responsibilities of youth in this new setting.A discussion concerning youth as stakeholders will look at how traditional perceptions of the role of youth as passive citizens, students, employees, and consumers are actively challenged and questioned today. An empirical narrative providing background on my experiences most relevant to this t rend, moreover, will be shared to provide personal context to this research. Lastly, the results and key findings from a survey conducted on the Role of Youth will be shared. 2. 1 Demographic Force Young people are also an ever-growing demographic force. According to UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), there are more than one billion people between the ages of 15 and 24 on the planet. [i] In the developing world, where 80 percent of young people can be found, youth comprise up to 70 percent of some nations’ populations. ii] In the United States of America, the baby boom generations of the 1940s 1950s made possible the subsequent echo boom (those born between 1977 and 1997), of which today’s young people are a substantial part – 80+ million strong[iii]. 2. 2 Democracy on the Rise The transformation of many authoritarian states to democracies (as shown in figure 1 below) has further improved and provided the essential conditions and environment for young peopl e to explore their interests, express themselves, take action on issues they care about, and access information. [pic][iv] As a result of the Internet, population growth, and rise of democratic societies, a new paradigm in the role of young people is beginning to emerge, resulting in the recognition of youth as citizens, students, employees and consumers.As many as 620 million people have access to the World Wide Web and related information and communications technologies (ICTs) worldwide, with the majority of Internet users based in the non-English-speaking countries. [v] English comprises 36. 5 percent (230. 6 million) of the world online population language, while the non-English-speaking world represents 63. 9 percent (403. 5 million). [vi] According to 2000 statistics from Forrester Research, 56 percent of 16-22 year-olds are online in the United States. They spend an average of 9 hours online, 38 percent more than the average wired adult and are involved in a wider variety of online activities compared to adults – 20 percent more. vii] The same survey found the majority of Internet users in the United States to be in the 18-49 age-group (63 percent), with only 37 percent of users in the 50+ age-group. [viii] 2. 3 Culture of Leadership The culture of leadership for much of the twentieth century was influenced, and modeled after, centralized structures of governance and rigid forms of authority. The onset of the Industrial Revolution unleashed a series of uncontested norms and universally-accepted orthodoxies that associated centralized management systems and constant decision-making with effective leadership. The social consequences of mass production and centralized management of many industries reduced the traditional family into solitary unit of production.As observed by one of the foremost theorists of management theory, Peter F. Drucker, the massive standardization of production methods and operating procedures (‘machine bureaucracy†™) also served to loosen the some conventional familial characteristics, ultimately culminating into the â€Å"crisis of the family†: On the farm and in the artisan's workshop husband, wife, and children worked together. The factory, almost for the first time in history, took worker and work out of the home and moved them into the workplace, leaving family members behind — whether spouses of adult factory workers or, especially in the early stages, parents of child factory workers. [ix]This centralized view of management in latter half of the past century, however, gradually conceded to more diffused and informal structures of governance; as more theorists and practitioners arrived at the common conclusion that â€Å"the better a business firm [organization] is organized, the more naturally decision rights gravitate to the spot where the best information is available about the specific decision that has to be made. †[x] The emergence, and mainstream influence of, the Internet in the past decade, moreover, has had a profound impact on the way a given society manages its daily affairs – socially, politically, and economically – bringing with it new, and never-before-heard-of industries, such as biotechnology and IT telecommunications.Whereas we may make the case that the rigid structures of the industrial age had a number of indirect negative impacts on families as a result of its emphasis on standardization and mass production, many believe that the information age, with its focus on integration and wide-scale distribution of information, has served the family by highlighting the importance of local communities and inter-cultural communication. [xi] Under the centralized form of governance, and prior to the Information Revolution, those with the most power and experience effectively possessed a monopoly over access to sources of information, and, therefore, tended to act as leaders within their communities. The â€Å"decisi on rights† of the younger and more inexperienced people were virtually non-existent and often viewed as being connected to those of women and the less advantaged in the society.In many ways, this paradigm still persists today in the sense that young people are seen by many as having passive roles in society, such as the student who is there to learn rather than teach, the young employee who needs to do what he/she is told rather than provide a source of creative and innovative input, the consumer who is viewed as a target to influence rather than to truly support, the child who needs to learn how to ‘grow up’, and the citizen who is disengaged because he/she either cannot vote or is part of a population whose voice matters little. In addition, because young people (defined as those between the ages of 13-30) are at the frontlines of change from being dependent on older generations to being independent, they have been especially vulnerable to external influences an d often lack a sense of empowerment because they suffer from the lack of essential resources, and limited involvement in decision-making. 2. 4 A Shift in Power DynamicsThe emergence of the Internet and other ICTs (Information & Communication Technologies) has been a catalyst for change, especially within the context of shifting traditional power dynamics. Increasingly, leadership is based on effective networks of collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Transforming leadership strategies from what they were during much of the past century has, to state it mildly, a challenge for most organizations and companies. More inclusive methods of governance, be it in the corporate world or the bureaucracy of the state, have been implemented in order to encourage, or project the image of, socially responsible behaviour. [xii] This transition, however, has almost been a foreign concept to youth growing up in the digital age.The advent of the Internet offered an opportunity to young people – most of whom are much well-versed in using computers and digital devices than their parents’ generation – to develop new virtual interests, relatively unknown and foreign to previous generations. This new medium no longer involved complex and rigid forms of management and communication that were associated with previous power-centric models of governance. The diffusion of the hierarchies and power structures also meant the decentralization of information and the formation of simple, and easily-managed, networks of people, accessible at the click of the mouse worldwide. In this new environment, sources of influence do not simply come from the top, but are inspired or affected by the views, ideas and perspectives of many stakeholders who are affected by the decisions being made.Governments and other formal decision-making bodies have been challenged to hold higher levels of transparency and accountability in order to gain institutional trust. Companies are increasingly interested in what their employees, customers and general public think about their business practices and increasingly aspire to become more socially responsible in order to address the needs and concerns of their stakeholders. [xiii] Instantaneous access to information and online resources has enabled the ‘common person’ make a contribution to organizations and society at large, while being able to demand a greater level of participation and involvement in decision-making.More than ever, young people growing up with technology have the opportunity to empower themselves using their unprecedented access to real-time information and knowledge sources that can be attained through ever-expanding social networks, new alliances, businesses, protests and advocacy campaigns, and websites expressing divergent views and perspectives. 2. 5 TakingITGlobal Online Community and Vision The TakingITGlobal. org Online Community provides: †¢ A pathway to support local action †¢ A platform for the voices of young people to be heard †¢ A framework for understand global challenges and issues †¢ A connection to resources and opportunities †¢ A network of interesting, dynamic and diverse young people †¢ A virtual space to showcase cross-cultural perspectives and expressions.In addition to engaging members of the online community, TakingITGlobal supports the needs of youth-led initiatives, educators and international organizations through its thematic, educational and organizational engagement strategies. TakingITGlobal’s 2010 Vision includes the following: †¢ To realize the potential of at least 5 million young people as leaders for the benefit of their local and global communities. †¢ To bridge the ‘continuity gap' enhancing the effectiveness of youth action by connecting all major youth activities, events, programs and initiatives in a global network. †¢ To mainstream recognition that young people are key stake holders in all national and international policy making. †¢ To produce the world’s most comprehensive and powerful knowledge resource – pushing the boundaries of online community and technology as a tool for social empowerment. To instigate significant evolution in the present concepts of school-education by increasing global connection, meaningful use of ICT’s (information, communication technologies) and inspiring student engagement. †¢ To demonstrate innovation, excellence, creativity and professionalism in the management of a new style of international organization that is entrepreneurial, technology-enhanced, and youth-driven. 2. 6 Youth Are Becoming More Engaged as Key Stakeholders When key stakeholders are brought together to share a vision for the future, it is critical to recognize that although most young people are unable to formally represent a business, government or non-profit institution as a key stakeholder, they do have the largest sta ke in the future and can often help to revive and refresh various perspectives being shared. Youth participation often requires changes in the way adults perceive and deal with adolescents, since the rights of young people and their capacities to make decisions for themselves are often unrecognized and undervalued. †[xiv] Increasingly, institutions are recognizing the importance of bringing the voices of young people to the forefront. On a global level, there are numerous summits that have brought together various leaders and decision-makers and have included young people as a key stakeholder or ‘major group’. For example, as a participant at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg, South Africa, I was part of what the United Nations considers to be a ‘Major Group’ within the overall process of the summit along with women, indigenous people, farmers, business etc.According to Agenda 21, involving each of the major group s in the decision-making process was recognized as being a â€Å"fundamental prerequisite for the achievement of sustainable development†[xv] The Report of the World Summit on Sustainable Development states that the process is inclusive of youth: 34. We are in agreement that this must be an inclusive process, involving all the major groups and Governments that participated in the historic Johannesburg 170. Promote and support youth participation in programmes and activities relating to sustainable development through, for example, supporting local youth councils or their equivalent, and by encouraging their establishment where they do not By promoting, supporting and involving youth as a major group, a statement is made about the importance of recognizing youth as key stakeholders.At the recent World Summit on the Information Society Preparatory Meetings which have been held in Geneva, Switzerland, the Youth Caucus is one of the strongest and most active groups, participating in the process alongside government, industry and other NGO groupings. 2. 7 Youth as Engaged Citizens On a national level, one of the basic conditions of a healthy democracy is having a population that votes. However, those under 18 are unable to participate – and not effectively inspired to vote once they’re able to, which has been leading to a large decline in youth voter turnout. In the US, only 60% of eligible voters under 25 have registered, and only 24% of those eligible to vote and over 20 say they â€Å"always vote† during elections. At the same time, many young people are civically engaged in many other ways – 40% of U. S. outh 14-24 have volunteered, 38% have participated in a boycott, and 44% have done some type of fundraising for charity, all within the last year. [xvi] There is a need to increase awareness and trust in political process, while also validating and supporting other forms of civic participation. There are a growing number of re gional, national, and local youth councils and networks sprouting up due to interest, support, and demand. Increasingly, different youth councils are strengthening their efforts through forging more partnerships and raising their profile. An example of this is the European Youth Forum, ‘a platform organization, it is the representative body for its members towards the institutions and partners active in the youth field.The 89 member organizations of the European Youth Forum represent a wide range of interests: student organizations, political organizations, organizations concerned with environmental protection, minorities, young rural organizations, conscripts organizations and many more. The European Youth Forum has member organizations including both national youth organizations and international youth organizations, drawn from throughout the European continent. The highest decision-making body is the General Assembly, which elects a Bureau made up of volunteers every two ye ars. The Bureau meets monthly to assess political priorities, implement its work plan and advises the Secretariat in its work. ’[xvii] Increasingly, youth councils are being formed and strengthened in order to provide opportunities for young people to have a stronger voice. 2. 8 From Student to TeacherDue to the rapid revolution in Information and Communication Technologies over the last decade, young people growing up as these technologies evolved have become innately comfortable using them, and have become neighborhood authorities on computer technologies. As the education system began to introduce computers in the classroom, young people were often frustrated as they were forced to re-learn skills they already had developed, such as BASIC programming and keyboarding. Over time, students’ expertise with technology has become accepted by teachers, and a variety of programs, such as Generation YES, have been developed to harness the skills and enthusiasm of students fo r technology to assist teachers in more meaningfully integrating it into the classroom. Young people are also learning from a wide variety of sources, and are increasingly deriving knowledge from their peers and non-school sources.As Don Tapscott cites in his 1998 book â€Å"Growing Up Digital†, many young people growing up in the late 80’s and early 90’s have learned basic skills from educational software like â€Å"Reader Rabbit† and video games. Thanks to online communication tools like ICQ, students are able to collaborate in real-time with their friends and peers across town or across the ocean, and share knowledge and ideas with each other. All told, this amounts to quite a challenge for the average teacher to cope with – a variety of students all with varying levels of technology access and external influences – as early as junior kindergarten! Of course, to meet the needs of these wired students as they progressed through the school system, Universities began to experiment with online course delivery and some now offer complete degree programs using a combination of ICTs.The role of a teacher has also evolved in these situations to more of a mentor and coach as needed, versus needing to hand-hold students through courses, enabling them to provide maximum value in supporting the course content versus needing to focus on content delivery. This generation of youth also enjoys sharing opinions – and teachers can’t escape! Websites like RateYourTeacher. com and RateMyProfessor. com showcase the ratings of teachers by thousands of students, opening up the previously untouchable teacher relationship to transparent feedback and criticism by ‘consumer’ students. 2. 9 Young Employees as a Source of Innovation There are a variety of implications for human resource departments in companies and organizations as they begin to hire and integrate new talent into their workforce.Because there is a lar ge population of youth who are entering the workforce and who carry a range of unique skills and perspectives (especially technology-related), the existing strategies that attempt to attract, retain and develop the next generation of talent need to adapt to a different set of needs, expectations and opportunities. Young employees, especially those doing internships, can provide an incredible source of innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and creative potential. In an organization where having many years of experience is valued, young people can be an overlooked, untapped resource. In the context of trying to solve problems in new ways, it is important to engage those who have not yet been institutionalized and are unfamiliar with the way that things have always been done.It is critical for organizations to develop new strategies that can allow them to more meaningfully involve young people in both problem-solving and decision-making processes, in order to respond to the complex and ev olving organizational challenges being faced. As it was mentioned above, the onset of the Information Revolution, coupled with the period of massive decentralization across-industries, had a profound impact on the way young people identify with the work environment. In the knowledge-based industries, rigid and strict structures of the past are largely associated with inefficiency, and are largely thought of as counterproductive to personal development.Having grown up with this mindset, young peoples’ perceptions toward decision-making and effective problem-solving are mainly derived from their experiences in the digital world, where interaction and inclusion of perspectives are essential, if not required, for achieving common goals. Therefore, in dealing with this new technologically-empowered demographic, new knowledge-based industries will have to reinvent many of the old approaches toward this new generation. This, in fact, means that they (industries) would have to appeal to their knowledge-workers â€Å"by satisfying their values, and by giving them social recognition and social power† which they have grown accustomed to. [xviii] 2. 10 The Interactive ConsumerDue to the nature of the Internet as a medium which allows for and is based upon networks and interactions, young consumers have the opportunity to be creators of media and content rather than simply consume what is produced for them. â€Å"Broadcast technology, like television, is hierarchical. It depends upon a top-down distribution system. Someone somewhere decides what will be broadcast and our role is limited to what we choose or do not choose to watch. There is no direct feedback from the viewer to the broadcaster†¦The internet depends upon a distributed, or shared, delivery system rather than a hierarchical one. The distributed, or shared, power is at the heart of the culture of interaction. [xix]† (p79)Due to the nature of the medium that young people are enabled by, they are able to demand a greater level of information, interactivity and involvement when it comes to products, services and the overall customer experience. Shopping comparison websites such as MySimon. com and BuyBuddy. com allow for intelligent and informed purchasing decisions to be made based on product-reviews and price comparisons. As a result, consumers are more empowered and can make more informed purchasing decisions. The Internet has provided other opportunities for consumers to be empowered by providing a vehicle for complaints to be expressed to large numbers of people. An example of this includes websites that are developed to discuss how a particular company ‘sucks’. Many URL’s have been purchased that say CompanyNameSucks. om and provide an avenue for disgruntled customers to share their complaints and concerns. Over half (55%) of survey respondents report boycotting a company or product at some point in their life, with 38 percent saying they h ave used their stick as a consumer in the past 12 months. And boycotting — buying a product or service because they like the social or political values of the company which produces it — is only slightly less prevalent. Just under half (45%) report having done so at some point in their life, while 35 percent have used the consumer carrot in the past 12 months. [xx] Bad experiences for unhappy customers can quickly become devastating experiences for a company’s image.This demonstrates that consumers have the opportunity to become more engaged and influential through the opportunities for interaction that the Internet provides. Because 85% of teens in Canada have Internet access and are online for over 9 hours per week[xxi], young people are especially in a position to become empowered consumers, as they frequently and simultaneously combine the process of learning, working, and play/entertainment, allowing them to constantly observe and share opinions and best pr actices. 2. 11 The Need for a Holistic Perspective on Youth as Stakeholders While looking through various reports, studies, books and other secondary sources – all of which offer a variety of insights related to the interests, needs and experiences of young people, a clear research gap became evident.Much of the research that exists on young people does not involve a global perspective, and often focuses on youth in the context of consumers in order to support business decisions, or youth who are ‘at risk’ and are a segment of the population vulnerable to a variety of social problems. Rarely are youth examined in the context of having the potential to be agents of change, problem-solvers, or leaders of the information society. In addition, major studies do not involve youth in the process of survey design, which can affect the potential bias of the research. In trying to examine if and how the role of young people has changed as a result of technology, the need f or a unique study involving youth leaders and influencers from around the world who have access to technology became clear. 3. Role of Youth Survey: ObjectivesIn order to gain a deeper understanding of how the role of young people is currently perceived and how it has changed over the last 100 years, a survey was designed to explore the following: Defining Youth ? How is ‘youth’ defined? Are notions of ‘youth’ associated with positive or negative connotations? What are key differences between the perceptions of youth vs. perceptions of adults? Perceptions and Attitudes Towards Youth ? Is this generation of youth perceived to be enabled and engaged or disadvantaged and disengaged? Are they optimistic or pessimistic about the future? What other perceptions and attitudes towards youth exist and are there regional differences? Participation in Decision-Making ? How important is it for young people to be involved in decision-making?What is the current perceived level of youth participation in decision-making on local, national and global levels? The Role of Technology ? Has technology played a role in transforming the role of youth in society at large and within different organizations and institutions? What impact has technology had in transforming the role of youth? Youth As Change Agents ? Are there interesting examples of young people having a meaningful impact in their communities? If so, what factors appear to enable this to take place? What are the hopes and ideals held by today’s generation of youth leaders? What recommendations can be offered in terms of the conditions that must exist for youth to become leaders? 4. Role of Youth Survey: MethodologyThe following is an Overview of the Survey Questions: Demographic Information: for people to fill out their gender, date of birth, city, country, educational background, employment status, volunteer status and Internet usage. Defining Youth: open-ended questions about what images and phrases come to mind when they hear the word ‘youth’ and ‘adult’ and a question asking how youth is defined. Key Issues and Interests: participants were asked to identify the key issues and interests of youth in their community. They had to select from drop-down lists and rank the top 3 in order of priority. Words included: Arts, Business/Entrepreneurship, Community, Education, Employment,Environment, Friends, Fundraising, Globalization, Health, HIV and AIDS, Human Rights, Leadership, Media, Music, Peace, Political Action, Religion, Romance, Sports, Sustainable Development, Technology, Travel, Volunteering, War. Attitudinal Characteristics: respondents were asked to rate 14 statements related to whether or not people agreed or disagreed with statements about youth on a scale of 1-5. Statements explored whether or not youth are perceived to be motivated, connected to opportunities, knowledgeable, inspired, informed, skilled, interested in being involved , focused, influenced by consumer culture, supported or lacking support from adults, optimistic or pessimistic.Additional questions about education and age were asked. Role of Youth – Today: participants were asked to give their opinion on the role of youth in their community. They had to select from drop-down lists and rank the top 3 in order of priority. Words included: Students, Workers, Members, Mentors, Trend-Setters, Activists, Citizens, Victims, Leaders, Criminals, Technologists, Volunteers, Artists, Role Models, Soldiers, Children, Innovators, Peace-keepers, Consumers, Trouble-makers, Employees, Entrepreneurs Participation in Decision-Making: a question about the importance of being able to participate in decision-king was asked (on a scale of 1-5).The second part of this question asked how involved young people are in decision-making on local, national and global levels for Business, Government and Non-Profit Organizations. Meaningful Impact: participants were asked to identify an example of how a youth within their community was effective at having a meaningful impact. Role of Youth – Historically: respondents were asked to identify whether or not the role of youth has changed over the past 100 years, and if so, has it been positive or negative. The response was based on a scale of 1-5. They then explained their response. Impact of Technology: respondents were asked to identify whether or not technology impacted youth in their community, and if so, if the impact has been positive or negative.They were given a scale of 1-5 and were then asked to explain their answer. Creating Change: A series of open-ended questions were asked about how survey respondents would create change in the world, their country, and the role of youth in their community, along with what conditions need to exist for youth to become leaders 4. 1 Promotion of Survey On December 23, 2002, the survey was sent out to over 15,000 people from over 190 countries. There wer e a variety of ways in which the survey was promoted. An automated, personalized e-mail was sent out to all members of the TakingITGlobal online community (which included over 13,000 people from over 190 countries at the time).The e-mail explained that as a ‘valued member of TakingITGlobal’, they were invited to participate in an ‘online survey to help determine their view on the role of youth in society’. The e-mail stated that it would take approximately 10 minutes to complete and that all of the information shared would be kept confidential and anonymous (meaning that their name would not be used without their permission). Although the survey was completely voluntary, an incentive for participating included having their name entered into a draw to win TIG t-shirts and mouse pads. In addition, each survey respondent would receive a free electronic copy of the final results once compiled.All survey participants were given until January 21st 2003 (approxima tely 4 weeks) to fill out the survey. In order to avoid an overwhelming amount of replies to the e-mail, the letter was signed from TakingITGlobal’s Research Team as opposed to coming from a specific individual. A modified version of the e-mail invitation to participate in the Role of Youth Survey was created and sent out to all of the organizations listed in the TakingITGlobal organizations database (over 1,000), along with youth mailing lists for various organizations and youth caucuses, and other personal networks. People were invited to pass the information along and invite others to participate in the survey.In order to maintain high levels of integrity, survey participants did not need to become a member of TakingITGlobal in order to fill out the survey, and did not need to fill out their name. If they were interested in receiving a copy of the final results, they were invited to provide their e-mail address. It is important to note that due to the nature of how the sur vey was promoted, all survey respondents have access to the Internet and are connected to existing networks that attract youth who are engaged. Thus, there exists some bias in the sample of survey respondents. In addition, there was no age restriction in order to participate which means that people of all ages were invited to fill out the survey, which was done for the purposes of comparison between different age groups.The views, opinions and perspectives that have emerged as a result of the survey findings are not a representation of international youth in its entirety, but rather, a reflection from a targeted sample of engaged youth who have some access to the Internet and are able to read and write English. With this in mind, based on the goals and objectives of this study, it is an appropriate audience to survey as the focus is on trying to better understand the views and perspectives of youth who have access to technology. If there were greater resources available for this stu dy, an offline component would exist and the survey would also be made available in multiple languages. This may be something to consider as a follow-up opportunity in the future.Once the survey responses were sent in through the online survey application, Martin Kuplens-Ewart exported the compiled responses into various files for analysis. The quantitative responses were sent in SPSS format for graphs and frequency tables to be generated. The extensive qualitative responses were formatted and printed in charts and tables. 4. 2 Analysis of Survey Results The process of analyzing the survey data was far more extensive, complex, lengthy and overwhelming than what was initially expected. A variety of people were involved as part of the research team in order to assist in the initial process of compiling, reviewing and making sense of various sections of the survey.A special thanks goes to Noor Alibhai, Jacob Bleakley, Hugh Switzer and Huss Banai who were all part of the research team a t TakingITGlobal. Much of their involvement was in the initial phase of reviewing the thousands of responses which were given for the various qualitative questions. They helped sort responses into various categories and tallied up similar responses in order to generate graphs which provide a glimpse at the nature of the responses. Once initial pie charts were generated, the results were discussed as a team and I was able to continue further analysis. The following is an overall break-down of the data analysis process: ? Phase 1 – PowerPoint Presentation Including Initial GraphsThe program used to analyze the quantitative survey results was the SPSS Educational Version. After an initial tutorial session with Joseph Amati who has a lot of experience in working with SPSS, a 44 page PowerPoint presentation was put together with support from Noor, which included graphs for each of the survey questions. The deck of slides was presented to advisors for feedback. The key learning was that all the labels which included N/A or 0 as the description needed to either be removed or modified. In most cases, the information provided by this column was one that reduced the quality and overall effectiveness of the graphs. This decision meant that all the graphs needed to be regenerated.Various other lessons were learned including analysis of frequency tables. ? Phase 2 – Regional and Age Break-Down of Graphs After a great deal of experimentation and technical support from Martin at TIG, appropriate labels were modified and new forms of categorization was implemented within the survey file to allow the data to be sorted by region and age. Graphs were regenerated for each of the questions in order to include the appropriate break-down. All of the new graphs compiled were put together in a Final Results word document. Since Microsoft Word and SPSS are not entirely compatible, a lot of time was wasted in regenerating and reformatting new graphs for the final results d ocument.In addition, certain graphs involved greater levels of complexity. Those questions which asked survey respondents to rank words on order of priority involved three sets of data which had to be added up in Excel prior to being able to generate the graph. Appropriate steps were taken to generate these graphs for global and regional responses. ? Phase 3 – Qualitative Results Initial Categorization of Responses ? In total, the survey involved over 10 open-ended qualitative questions which each had their set of over 1,000 responses per question. The overwhelming amount of data collected through these questions involved extensive hours of interpretation and results compilation.The first phase of this process involved a team of researchers from TakingITGlobal tackling a specific question and developing different categories for the responses based on frequent responses. The categories established are quite subjective and as different people were involved in the process, certa in categories were modified. Initially, a larger ‘other or inapplicable’ section existed for the various categories. A second review of questions involved breaking-down the ‘other’ responses into further sub-categories in attempt to further identify key patterns and occurrences. In addition to categorizing responses and generating pie graphs in Excel to reflect the overall responses, a series of summaries were created for each of the qualitative questions.Each summary included a description of the category identified and a general overview of the responses that were placed in the category. Beneath the description included a few selected quotes which offered a general idea of the types of responses included within the identified category. A variety of challenges were encountered throughout this process, including the fact that many responses could have easily been placed in multiple categories. To adequately deal with this challenge, in the final tally, they were often placed in both categories and the total number increased. In the final graphs, the ‘other’ category has been removed from the pie chart in order to leave room for smaller categories which emerged from the initial other category.Rather than view the final pie charts as conclusive or statistically accurate, it is important to see them from the perspective of general categories of responses from highest to lowest frequency. ? Phase 4 – Advice, Suggestions and Feedback from Advisors The compiled graphs for quantitative results and qualitative survey results summary pages became the first version of the Final Results document which was 60 pages. This document was then shared with a variety of advisors including Robert Bernard and Shelly Smith from DCODE, a strategy and market research firm based in Toronto. A variety of suggestions and recommendation were provided by D*CODE in order to strengthen the overall impact of the survey results. Many lessons were learned through the feedback shared.Some of the advice was integrated; however after then speaking to my academic advisor, I was able to distinguish which changes were most appropriate to make for the purposes of my final report. One of the suggestions made included grouping the age categories differently in order to have fewer categories. The suggested age groupings include 14-19, 20-24, 25-30 and 31+. This proposed grouping addresses a few issues. Since there is a very small sample under the age of 14, it eliminates their responses from the results. Since youth is defined as up to the age of 31 and there are a smaller number of respondents over the age of 31, it helps to create one category of ‘adult’ or the purposes of comparison. This change was not made due to time constraints and in order to avoid over-simplifying the results. Another suggestion included removing the ‘neutral’ responses from graphs and clumping the ‘somewhat’ and ‘v ery’ categories together. Although this would have helped to provide clearer contrast between how the responses were weighted, it would have also reduced opportunities of noticing situations where many people were ‘neutral’, which is an observation in itself. In reviewing the charts which identify the top issues and concerns of youth, D*CODE suggested that it would be helpful to have them listed from the highest to lowest priority.Additional tables were created which identify the top 10 issues in each region in order of highest to lowest. In addition, percentages were added on existing bar graphs. Another major distinction was made between what was necessary to include in the results compared to the discussion about the results. The results of the survey are presented in the order that the questions were asked. Each graph includes a brief description. The discussion of the results is categorized in a way that makes the most overall sense, especially in terms of t he flow. In addition, only the most interesting patterns, trends and observations are highlighted in the discussion about the results. ? Phase 5 – In-Depth Reflection and Analysis of Qualitative ResponsesThe amount of qualitative responses meant that several ‘passes’ at reviewing the data were necessary. Members of the research team who were initially involved with analyzing particular questions were involved in a discussion about the results and each had an opportunity to present their findings to one another in front of an audience of other TakingITGlobal staff members. As a group, general patterns and trends were discussed and further areas of exploration were identified. After that, I spent quite some time re-reading and reviewing all of the raw qualitative results along with survey summaries. I tried to extract patterns and conclusions from the categories f responses, to better explain the impact of the data. A variety of new charts and summaries were develo ped for questions based on an additional review through the various responses to qualitative questions. These were then shared with a few other groups of people for feedback. ? Phase 6 – Written Descriptions for All Graphs Presented in Final Results After evaluating the many graphs included in the report, I looked through the data in greater detail and produced written descriptions to accompany the graphs, both to provide additional information and insight, but also to help the reader more quickly discover the wealth of data each chart had to communicate.Throughout this process, certain graphs were regenerated in order to further improve the quality of labels, the ability to view responses from both age and regional break-downs, and to include percentages where appropriate on selected graphs. ? Phase 7 – Review Final Results for Key Findings ? With the final compilation of updated graphs, descriptions and survey response summaries, a comprehensive overview of the Final Results document took place. With the editing assistance of Hussein Banai and Michael Furdyk, this final report was created. 4. 3 Demographic Profile of Survey Respondents Region: The Role of Youth Survey involved a total sample of 1443 respondents from 126 countries. The majority of respondents reside in North America (29. %) and Africa (27. 4%). There were 16. 9% of respondents from Asia and the Middle East, 14. 3% of respondents from Europe, 7. 1% from Oceania and 4. 3% from South and Central America. Gender: A higher number of respondents were male (58. 7%) compared to female (38. 7%). There were notably more female respondents compared to male respondents in North America and Oceania, whereas in Africa, there were a greater number of male participants. This may be because it is less culturally appropriate for women to have access to computers in Africa. Age: A larger number of survey respondents were under the age of 30 (75%) compared to those who are age 30 and over (25%).Thi s is likely because the survey was about youth and was promoted throughout many networks that are specifically intended to connect youth. The average age (mean) of the sample was 26 years old. Employment Status: The majority of survey respondents are currently employed (63. 7%), while 36. 4% are unemployed. Many of those who identified themselves as unemployed are in the under 25 age-group, while those with a job are mainly in the 26 and up age category. Volunteer Status: There was a relatively even number of respondents who identify themselves as volunteers (53%) compared to non-volunteers (47%). There were more volunteers in the under 30 age category compared to the 31 and up age category.Educational Status and Background: Only 40% of the respondents identify themselves as students compared to 59% of respondents who are not currently students. The are a higher number of respondents who identify themselves as students in the 16-20 age category. The survey sample is fairly educated in the sense that they are literate, they are able to speak and write in English (many also speak other languages fluently), and a large number of respondents have completed primary and secondary education. 55. 2% of respondents have completed or are attending University or College and 20. 9% of respondents have completed or are pursing Post Graduate Studies.Online Activity: All survey respondents have basic access to the Internet, whether it be through an Internet cafe, library, school, work or home computer. 46% of the respondents stated that they are online between 1-10 hours per week. 22. 9% of respondents are online between 11-20 hours and 24. 5% are online for more than 21 hours each week. When asked what they do online, they key reoccurring themes involved communication, research & information searching (including working on projects and employment), music, games & entertainment. The following is a summary of the major online activities respondents are involved in: †¢ Co mmunication: Almost every response made reference to checking e-mail, if not instant messaging and/or chat room use. †¢ Research and information:Most users identified reading various newspapers, searching background information on their interests and using online information resources to aid completion of their work and/or homework as frequent uses. †¢ Work – on projects, employment: Work was often cited as NGO involvement, general employment and the development and maintenance of personal web-pages. †¢ Music, games and entertainment: On-line time is shared among downloading music, playing games and generally related to any other media/entertainment purposes. 5. Defining Youth In looking at how the concept ‘youth’ is defined, there are different notions and interpretations that can be grouped into three major areas.The most common conceptions present youth in the context of having bountiful energy, a sense of leadership, curiosity and vision for th e future. â€Å"Period of the life when we are still dreaming;† said a 30-year-old male, Skopje, Macedonia. Just over half of the survey respondents expressed that ‘youth’ is defined by the age of a person; with most of the respondents in the 13-30 age-group. The next major interpretation of how youth are defined was expressed through various personality characteristics and outlooks on life. â€Å"Vivacious, full of energy, want to make a mark in life, impulsive and one who are not scared to take risks;† said a 19-year-old female, Pune, India. Many descriptions shared by survey respondents clearly define ‘youth’ in a positive and idealistic light.The third major category defining youth focuses on the particular life stage that people are situated in while in transition from being dependents to being independent. â€Å"A person who is starting to enjoy freedom for the first time†¦;† said a 26-year-old male, Harare, Zimbabwe. A key t heme that is frequently repeated throughout this stage of transition is the freedom and lack of constraints that exist compared to older adults who are weighed down by greater responsibilities and societal pressures. Societal institutions develop various mechanisms to train and nurture the development of young people who are at a life stage that allows them to be open-minded, free-spirited, creative and imaginative.There exists a clear correlation between the social conditioning of young people who need to prepare to become adults and the aspirations of adults to re-connect with their ‘youthful creative energy’ in an age where creativity and innovation are highly valued and a scarce resource in large bureaucratic institutions. However, there is both a strong contrast and a connection that exists between notions of ‘youth’ and ‘adult’. A common thread is that both involve age as part of the definition. The following chart highlights the contrast that exists between the most frequent expressions that emerged in response to the questions ‘What words, images and phrases come to mind when you hear the word ‘youth’ and then asked the same question for ‘adult’: Associations with the word ‘Youth’ |Associations with the word ‘Adult’ | |Lack wisdom, need guidance |Caregivers, Standard Setters | |Dreamers, Visionary, Hope for the Future |Critical, Dream-Killers, Few Idealists | |Freedom, Experimentation, Playfulness |Burdened, Busy, Responsibilities | |Open-Minded, Flexible, Innovative |Rigid-Thinking, Stuck, Conservative | |Rebellious, Free-spirited |Professional and traditional | |Innocence, Naive, Potential |Greedy,Corrupt, Selfish | |Disadvantaged, Vulnerable, Unheard Voice |Decision-Makers, Positions of Authority | In reflecting on the nature of the responses to this question, it is important to note that the overall perceptions of ‘adults’ are negative com pared to perceptions of ‘youth. ’ This bias may exist as a result of the sample size which involved 75% of people under the age of 30. It is possible if more adults were surveyed, especially those adults who are less involved and connected to youth networks, there may have been more negative categories for youth. It is also important to keep in mind that certain words and phrases can have both a positive and negative interpretation.For example, depending on the context of the situation, being rebellious can be seen as something that involves creating trouble or struggling towards positive change. Being a dreamer may imply that one has a strong sense of imagination while at the same time, having the potential of being caught up in a fantasy which is never actualized. A variety of the characteristics which describe adults involve ideals which youth often aspire towards attaining such as being a decision-maker or someone in a position of authority. These are perceived atti tudes however there may be more instances where adults feel powerless and that they are not in a position to make decisions. This may help to explain the sense that people have of ‘adults’ being busy and burdened with responsibilities.Overall, there appears to be an interesting generational relationship and potential communication gap that exists which involves both tension and aspiration. The survey results suggest that ‘youth’ can be a great source of energy, vision, hope and potential, while at the same time being vulnerable, voiceless and rebellious. The results also demonstrate that although ‘adults’ can be conservative, critical and rigid in their thinking, ultimately, they are relied on as care-givers, decision-makers and sources of knowledge and authority. The challenge for youth is to find their voice and become empowered without losing their sense of spirit and optimism.The challenge for adults is in finding ways to handle increasing amounts of responsibility and power in a way that doesn’t exclude, ignore or disengage youth, while also reconnecting their own sense of youth. While exploring and more deeply understanding the role of young people in the context of today’s society, it is important to note that generational barriers have existed and persisted throughout the course of history. It is possible that this generation of youth will have greater opportunities to empower themselves to have a voice as a result of the many forums which are emerging, however it is also clear that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done in order to allow for positive intergenerational partnership.When we asked the survey respondents to identify the role that they saw youth having within their communities, the most common response across all regions was youth having the role of the student. This makes sense for a variety of reasons. Those participating in the survey are either currently students or have g raduated and feel that since a great deal of time as a young person is spent on learning, whether it be in school or in other contexts such as the home or workplace, it is appropriate that the role Role of Youth The role of youth in realising the dreams of Dr. Kalam â€Å"Dream, dream, dream, your dreams will transform into thoughts, thoughts lead to honest work, work results in action and you will succeed† has been rightly said by Dr. Abul Pakir Jainul Abideen Abdul Kalam. Dreams can be accomplished by youth as they have commitment to action. To quote Jean Ingelow â€Å"Youth! Youth! How buoyant are the hopes; they turn, Like marigolds, towards the sunny side†.Students’ life is meant for studies to become true and responsible citizens, formidable leaders and esteemed legislators as India entails such intellectually alert and adroit disciples. A nation of disciplined youth can travel in the path of progress. They play a crucial mantle in the endeavours for equality and justice. They must assimilate from the very beginning- the lessons of self-help, self-reliance and self-sacrifice. Youth should be jawans and take up arms against the corrupted people and spill the beans o n to the public so as no person ever never has the nerve to indulge in any illegal activities.As sizeable part of Indians are unscholarly and backward who are unknown regarding the new-fangled evolutions, the allegiance falls on us to empower and bring perception to them with latest trends, technologies and scientific inventions. As Shankaracharya says, â€Å"The springs of patriotism are deep rooted in Indians†, we should show it beyond the desire. â€Å"Janani janma bhoomischa swargad api gariyasi† said lord Sri Rama to Lakshmana when the latter, attracted by the opulence of Lanka, expressed an ardent desire to settle down there. Your mother land, great or not, are forsooth greater than a paradise. † Hence, we should comprehend that our mother land is the only place where we can reach maximum glory and recognition. We should also look for jobs within the country and strive for its progress. We must play a paramount role in safeguarding our country by involving ourselves in politics. We are the best judges as we have mentally matured minds to differentiate between good and bad which is prevailing in the society.India being the country of many races, languages, religions and beliefs we should have unity. Thus, said Mark Twain â€Å"India is the cradle of human race, the birth place of human speech, the mother of human history, the grandmother of legend and the great grandmother of tradition†. But despite of this diversity the social structure there has been an unstable unity and affinity which had bound the people of this vast country into a well-knit nation throughout its chequered history.The requisite of maintaining this unity in diversity and national integration is all the more indispensable. We should make people inculcate the ideal â€Å"One flag, one nation, one land, one hand, one heart, evermore! † which eventually leads the country to the pinnacle of success. Women constitute the most pivotal role for the upliftment of our country. The strength of our country depends on them. â€Å"Next to God we are indebted to women first for life itself and then for making it worth living. We should accept equal participation of women in all fields to make the country economically amiable. We should all create a nation which is one of the best places to live in and which brings smiles to the billion faces and also to realize the dreams of our former President, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, a dynamic and versatile person. Therefore, always be ready to walk in the unexplored path as to succeed in life everyone must understand and master three mighty forces- desire, belief and expectation.

Job Satisfaction, Work Environment, and Rewards:

Job Satisfaction, Work Environment, and Rewards: Motivational Theory Revisited labr_496 1.. 23 Lea Sell — Bryan Cleal Abstract. A model of job satisfaction integrating economic and work environment variables was developed and used for testing interactions between rewards and work environment hazards. Data came from a representative panel of Danish employees. Results showed that psychosocial work environment factors, like information about decisions concerning the work place, social support, and in? uence, have signi? cant impacts on the level of job satisfaction.Maximizing rewards did not compensate public employees to an extent that ameliorated the negative effects on job satisfaction of experiencing low levels of any of these factors whereas in? uence did not impact job satisfaction of private employees. 1. Introduction Although job satisfaction is not considered an economic variable in itself, several studies in a labour economic context have highlighted that low job satisf action is a determinant of resignations from the work place; see Akerlof et al. (1988), Blank and Diderichsen (1995), Clark et al. 1998), and Kristensen and Westergaard-Nielsen (2004). Other studies have shown an impact from job satisfaction on phenomena that are more dif? cult to observe directly, such as intention to leave the work place (Bockerman and Ilmakunnas, 2005), motivation and absenteeism (Keller, 1983; Tharenou, 1993), and counterproductive behaviour (Gottfredson and Holland, 1990). Work environment has been found to in? uence labour market outcomes in terms of early retirement (see Lund and Villadsen, 2005), employee long-term absence from work due to illness (see Benavides et al. 2001; Hemmingway et al. , 1997; Lund et al. , 2005), short-term sickness absence (see Munch-Hansen et al. , 2009), and productivity (see Cooper et al. , 1996). Within traditional economic theory, work environment factors have tended to be modelled as job attributes, seen as hazards at work for which compensating wage differentials are to be paid. The theory of compensating wage differentials goes as far back as Adam Smith’s book, Wealth of Nations, from 1776, where equalizing wage differentials adjust the net advantages of different jobs.This makes it possible to achieve general labour market equilibrium when work places, preferences, and technologies are heterogeneous. Rosen (1986) reviews the various studies on the area and ? nds evidence of compensating wage differentials especially for physical working conditions, like shift work, heavy, dirty, or dangerous work. Other studies ? nd no evidence of compensating wages differentials (see Ehrenberg and Smith, 1994) or, in cases where workers do receive compensating wages differences, that the compensation does not re? ct their true preferences (see Lanfranchi, 2002). Lea Sell — Bryan Cleal (author for correspondence), The National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Lerso Parkalle 105, 2100 Copenhag en, Denmark. E-mail: [email  protected] dk. LABOUR 25 (1) 1–23 (2011) DOI: 10. 1111/j. 1467-9914. 2010. 00496. x JEL J6, J28, J30, J31, J45, J81  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Rd. , Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main St. , Malden, MA 02148, USA. 2 Lea Sell — Bryan ClealAccording to the theory of compensating wages differentials, the equalization of total compensation is dependent on both perfect mobility of workers and perfect information for workers and ? rms. Both assumptions are questionable. Mobility may be, at least temporarily, limited by factors such as a high unemployment rate or family ties, restricting job choice to a speci? c mix of working hours, pay, or location. Likewise, full information regarding working conditions, especially when drawing in psychosocial work factors, cannot be known in advance, but will be experienced only in the actual work situation.Under these circumstances adverse working conditions can have an impact on the level of job satisfaction even if high wages are paid. The purpose of the present paper is to identify determinants of job satisfaction in a model that contains detailed information on both work environment and economic factors. Moreover, we wish to test if employees report the same level of job satisfaction when exposed to a hazardous work environment in which compensations are maximized, as compared with a non-hazardous work environment in which there are no compensatory rewards.The results from the ? rst analysis are of interest because most previous studies on job satisfaction either do not include all economic variables of interest, and are cross-sectional studies not accounting for unobserved heterogeneity, or include only few work environment factors. The second analysis can supplement the theory of compensating wages differentials by introducing more detailed work environment measures and by testing the capability of rewards to compensate workers for hazards in the work environment to an extent that ameliorates the effects on job satisfaction.The work environment factors considered are all evidence-based health risks factors, thereby both long-term effects on work ability and health and short-term effects on employee satisfaction and motivation are considered. The data used in this study are a panel of a representative cohort of Danish employees at two points in time, 1995 and 2000. The data set consists of individual assessments of working conditions and socio-economic data for 3,412 employees (when omitting observations with missing response on any of the items analysed here). The data were collected by the National Institute of Occupational Health in Denmark. . Theoretical background Job satisfaction is not an absolute measure but merely an indicator for a range of job characteristics. Using Locke’s (1976) de? nition, job satisfaction is a positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of oneâ€℠¢s job and it is worth recalling here that such subjective data are generally viewed with suspicion by economists. Freeman (1978) states that the principal problem in interpreting responses to such questions is that they depend not only on the objective circumstances in which an individual is situated, but also on one’s psychological state.Moreover, the level of job satisfaction may also be in? uenced by ability thus representing unobservable, stable characteristics of individuals. Earlier studies within organizational psychology have shown that the level of job satisfaction varies very little over time, suggesting that it does re? ect underlying stable personal dispositions (see Schneider and Dachler, 1978). This has been tested on a cohort of German employees by Dormann and Zapf (2001) in a review on the studies on the alleged stability of job satisfaction.The result was that after controlling for stable working conditions, the stability of job satisfaction diminishes to no nsigni? cance, indicating that an underlying dispositional in? uence on job satisfaction is not direct, but mediated by working conditions. This also suggests that the level of job satisfaction can be changed by organizational measures.  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd Job Satisfaction, Work Environment, and Rewards 3 A general and well-known model of job satisfaction was developed by Herzberg (see Herzberg et al. 1959). He found that some job factors could only cause dissatisfaction or short-lasting motivation whereas other factors could invoke long-lasting positive feelings towards the job. If job factors are in fact dual with regard to their effect on job satisfaction, the method used for examining job satisfaction should account for this. If only testing for positive or negative associations between the covariates and job satisfaction, information on the factors being only capable of causing either high job satisfaction or low job satisfa ction would most likely be lost.As for the effects of compensatory rewards, this may be essential and consequently separate analyses are undertaken here for the outcome being highly satis? ed with the job and the outcome being dissatis? ed with the job. Many of the earlier studies on job satisfaction have made an analytical distinction between the two genders as there consistently has been reported higher job satisfaction for women; see, for example, Sloane and Williams (2000) and Clark (1997). Where Sloane and Williams ? nd that the differences stem from men and women having different types of work, Clark ? ds that neither different jobs, their different work values, nor sample selection accounts for the gender satisfaction differential. Rather he proposes an explanation based on well-being relative to expectations. A man and a woman with the same jobs and levels of expectations would report identical levels of job satisfaction. But as women’s expectations are lower than men ’s due to having been more attached to work in the home, they will report higher job satisfaction than their male counterparts even given the same working conditions. This hypothesis is supported by the ? ding that the gender satisfaction differential disappears for the young, the higher educated, professionals and those in male-dominated work places. This can be related to the length of time women have had an established position at the labour market, an issue that has been further exploited in a paper by Kaiser (2005). Here Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are the only European countries that do not show signi? cant gender–job satisfaction differences. They argue that the gender–job satisfaction paradox fades out in the process of ‘modernizations’ of the labour market.This modernization is facilitated if the welfare state as in Scandinavia and, to a certain extent, the Netherlands supports equal opportunities for women and men by means of, fo r example, kindergartens and homes for the elderly people. A more recent topic within this line of economic literature is based on the theory that the public sector is likely to attract individuals with high intrinsic motivation to care about the recipients of public service or those who thrive on the social recognition they might receive for contributing to an important mission (Benabou and Tirole, 2006).And although the picture is not fully conclusive, studies have in fact shown that publicly employed workers are less motivated by high pay and place a higher value on the intrinsic rewards than employees within the private sector. They are prepared to work for a lower overall pay level than is the case for private-sector employees because they derive satisfaction from participating in the production of a good of high social value; see, for example, Karl and Sutton (1998) and Houston (2000). Ren (2010) points to that value congruence or organization and employees can strengthen the intrinsic motivation. He also investigates whether value congruence can impact the design of the organization and ? nds that value congruence is related to employee participation in decision making and autonomy as opposed to control. Apart from the above discussed differences in the incentive structures in the public and the private sector, there is also a difference in the gender distribution within the two sectors as women tend to be over-represented in the public as well as the non-pro? t sector. Narcy et al. 2008) investigates possible explanations for this and ? nds that the ‘feminization’ of the public sector can be explained by the fact that women obtain a higher wage gain from choosing this sector than men do, investigating, among other factors, the social objectives pursued by the  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd 4 Lea Sell — Bryan Cleal public sector. Also ? exible working hours have seemed to attract women. The result in regard to wages was found for Greek data in Demoussis and Giannakopoulos (2007). In Denmark 63. per cent of the employees in the public sector are women whereas this ? gure for the private sector is only 35. 1 per cent (OECD, 1997). According to the previous discussion, a meaningful analytical distinction when studying job satisfaction is between the private and the public sector. Newer studies that have applied this distinction with good results are, for example, Demoussis and Giannakopoulos (2007) and Ghinetti (2007). They use Greek and Italian data, respectively, and the measures are on so-called ‘domain satisfactions’ representing different facets of the job, instead of a universal measure.Ghinetti examines differences in satisfaction between the private and the public sector in regard to six non-pecuniary job attributes. He ? nds that public and private employees are equally satis? ed on three of the items, that the publicly employed are more satis? ed on two items, and one item with mixed results. Using a division on sector, gender differences can be tested by means of interactions effects. In the present paper, we use a division on sector in combination with tests of gender interaction effects. An often discussed topic in relation to job satisfaction is wage.The general assumption is that higher wage increases job satisfaction, not necessarily because it actually makes you happier in the job, but because a higher wage increases overall utility by increasing total expenditure opportunities. Many studies apply a general job satisfaction measure, which makes it dif? cult to distinguish the two effects. Furthermore, not only absolute, but also relative wage is considered to be positively correlated to the level of job satisfaction. This is when using the wages of other workers having the same characteristics and type of job for comparison; see, for example, Clark (1996).In the present paper, wage is used as one type of reward along wi th recognition and future opportunities at the job. In order not to confuse the relationships between the three types of rewards, we use the absolute wage in the present analyses as opposed to relative wages. The job satisfaction measure applied is a general measure of job satisfaction. Other determinants of job satisfaction often applied in analyses performed within labour economic theory and thus also used in our analyses include education, job tenure, managerial position, the unemployment rate, and marital status and number of children.Tenure and having a leading position have nearly always been found to be positively related to job satisfaction (Clark, 1997). The relationships between job satisfaction, level of education, the unemployment rate, and wages are intertwined and convoluted. Education raises wages and thus job satisfaction. But education also raises expectations with respect to job content and thus the likelihood of experiencing job dissatisfaction. In addition, there is more opportunity for mobility between jobs in the low-wage job market due to fewer matching criteria for taking a job, increasing the likelihood of job satisfaction.Finally, a lower unemployment rate can raise job satisfaction through improved mobility (see Akerlof et al. , 1988). Where possible we use the unemployment rate within speci? c professions (60 per cent in the current sample), otherwise the average unemployment rate is used. Hours of work have been considered as a measure of the disutility of work whereas utility is increasing with increased leisure time. In Denmark, as well as in many other countries, working hours have to a great extent become a non-divisible good as a result of regulation.Moreover, long working hours can be evident both for workers having a very challenging job and for workers just having too much work, as shown by Kristensen et al. (2004). As a result we decided not to use the absolute number of working hours in our analyses and included ? exibili ty of working hours instead. Although work environment has been used extensively in earlier job satisfaction studies, the present article restricts its focus to factors where there is evidence of negative health outcomes.  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing LtdJob Satisfaction, Work Environment, and Rewards 5 A widely used theory within psychosocial work environment research is the demand– control model, elaborated by Karasek (see Karasek and Theorell, 1990). Job demands encompass quantitative job demands, time pressure, and con? icting job demands whereas decision latitude in contrast is a measure of control and composed of level of job discretion and the degree of in? uence. Workers exposed to high demands and low control have an increased risk for a number of diseases, notably cardiovascular diseases.High job demands in association with low control have also been associated with diseases such as musculoskeletal disorders, psychiatric illne ss, gastrointestinal illness, cancer, suicide, sleeping problems, and diabetes (see Kristensen, 1996). Later studies (e. g. Johnson and Hall, 1988) have shown that a high level of social support can counteract the negative effects of high job strain. A more recent theory is the effort–reward imbalance model by Siegrist (1996). High effort in combination with low rewards has been shown to have an impact on stress, sudden cardiac death, and hypertension.In this model job demands are a composite measure of time pressure and other quantitative demands, similar to the demands of the demand–control model. Reward can be in the form of wages, recognition, and opportunities for personal development or career opportunities. In our analyses we integrate all three reward measures in testing if employees report the same level of job satisfaction when exposed to a hazardous work environment in which compensations are maximized, as compared with a non-hazardous work environment in wh ich there are no compensatory rewards.Job security and predictability are related to the conception of status control. Not having a high level of information on decisions that concern the work place is an invisible stressor that has been found to predict heart disease (see Iversen et al. , 1989). In the extensive Whitehall II study set-up in Britain in order to investigate the causes of the social gradient in morbidity and mortality, the impact of privatization on a former civil-servant department when job outcomes were not established was evaluated (see Stansfeld et al. , 1997).In the gap between the announcement of the privatization and the termination phase where the employees had gained more certainty about their future job status, there was an increase in the psychiatric morbidity compared with the morbidity in the period before the announcement of the privatization. Other psychosocial health factors included in the analyses in this paper are being exposed to aggression at the work place and role con? icts. Exposure to con? icts, teasing, or threats of violence can provoke stress, anxiety, and, in the long run, fatigue in the victims (see Hoegh, 2005).Role con? ict is a measure of con? icting demands and unclear responsibilities and is considered a source of chronic stress, also shown to have an impact on job satisfaction (Fisher and Gitelson, 1983). Physical job demands are included using a measure of the frequency of odd working positions, including having the back heavily bent forward with no support for hands or arms, twisted or bent body, hands lifted to shoulder height or higher, the neck heavily bent forward or squatting or kneeling (see Lund and Tsonka, 2003). Noise is measured on a dichotomous scale re? cting if workers are exposed to noise so high that one must raise his or her voice more than 75 per cent of the time in order to communicate with others. For a review of the effects of noise on mental health, see Stansfeld et al. (2000). 3. Method 3. 1 Elaboration of variables In this paper the wording of the question on job satisfaction is: ‘Are you satis? ed with your job? ’. The answers fall in four verbally labelled and ordered categories. Possible answers are:  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd 6 Lea Sell — Bryan Cleal Yes, indeed’, ‘To some extent’, ‘Not so much’, and ‘No or very seldom’. For analytical purposes, answers in the category ‘Yes, indeed’ de? ne the outcome high job satisfaction whereas answers in categories ‘Not so much’ and ‘No or very seldom’ de? ne being dissatis? ed with the job. In general the variables are entered in the model in their original form. However the variable representing high demands in combination with low control, as well as the scale for social support, is composed of several measures. Social support consists of a practical and a psychological dimension, both of which are assessed in the questionnaires.The scales differ slightly from 1995 to 2000 and we have therefore dichotomized in a way that makes them equivalent. Hence we only look at situations where the employee either always receives help, support, and encouragement or not. There are separate questions for social support from colleagues and from leaders or superiors. Not always receiving support from either colleagues or superiors is assigned the lowest level, always receiving support from either colleagues or superiors are the two intermediate levels, and always receiving support from both groups is the highest level.In order to measure demands and level of control, a variable that re? ects the demands in different occupations has been constructed. Demands are de? ned as being high if work demands attention and full concentration almost all of the time, if the pace of work is perceived to be very fast, or when con? icting or unclear job demands are experienced. L ow control is de? ned as a combination of limited in? uence on planning one’s own work and low job variation. 3. 2 Data and the population Data on work environment and health in the working population were obtained from the Danish Work Environment Cohort Study (DWECS) (see Burr et al. 2003). The panel started out with a simple random sample drawn from the central population register in 1990, consisting of people aged 18–59 years per 1 October 1990. People in this panel were interviewed in 1995, 2000, and 2005 and the panel is continuously adjusted for ageing and immigration. The 1990 sample consisted of 9,653 individuals of which 8,664 participated (90 per cent). Of these, 6,067 (70 per cent) were wages earners. The following 1995 sample consisted of 10,702 persons, of which 8,572 participated (80 per cent).Of the participants in 1995, 5,649 (65. 9 per cent) were wage earners, 6. 7 per cent were enterprise owners, and 27. 4 per cent were not in the job market. Of the 5 ,649 wage earners in 1995, 4,647 also participated in the survey in 2000 (82. 3 per cent). The population used for the analyses in this paper are the respondents who were wage earners in 1995 and who also participated in DWECS as wage earners in 2000, corresponding to 3,773 individuals. The sample only contains information about present job in 1995 and 2000, respectively, and on tenure in these jobs.Information on possible intervening unemployment spells is only obtainable when linking the data set to a register of social payment transfers that have not been within the scope of this paper. Job satisfaction has shown to be related to job change as in, for example, Kristensen and Westergaard-Nielsen (2004). As for job change in our population, a total of 1,128 individuals have changed work place in the period. When dividing this subsample on job satisfaction levels as reported in 1995, 49. 7 per cent of those who were not, or only very seldom satis? ed with the job change work place d uring the 5-year period whereas only 32. per cent of those who were highly or to some extent satis? ed with the job have changed job by 2000. Moreover, as wage earners who had a low degree of job satisfaction in 1995 have had a higher  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd Job Satisfaction, Work Environment, and Rewards 7 incentive to leave the work force completely or start their own enterprise by 2000, the ? nal sample may be biased. To estimate the size of this potential bias, all participants in 2000 (including unemployed and enterprise owners) are divided among the four categories of job satisfaction levels reported in 1995.The results are that 21 per cent of those who were not, or only very seldom, satis? ed are not in the work force in 2000. Of those who were highly or to some extent satis? ed with the job, only 14 per cent had left the work force. However, the total amount of dissatis? ed workers who have left the sample amounts to 58 perso ns and attrition should therefore not pose a serious threat to the reliability of results. After deducting observations with missing values on any of the analysed items, the cohort consisted of 3,412 individuals. See Table 1 for sample characteristics. 3. 3 Statistical analysesThe data resulting from measuring qualitative phenomena by the use of questionnaires are most often categorical, ordinally scaled data. This means that they are ordered, but with intervals that might be uneven. One example is measures of job satisfaction using a verbal rating scale, consisting of a discrete number of verbally described ordered categories. This type of data restricts the types of arithmetic operations that can be applied, which in turn limit the range of statistical methods suitable for the analysis. As noted earlier, another problem when analysing job satisfaction is that of unobserved heterogeneity.It causes problems because the regression model is based on the assumption that there is no cor relation between the explanatory variables and the error term. But as the error term captures the variation from potentially omitted variables such as ? xed personal traits that may in? uence the probability of a speci? c outcome on the job satisfaction variable, this type of model error is likely to occur in analyses of job satisfaction. A method to eliminate heterogeneity is the application of conditional likelihood in logistic regression, as shown by Chamberlain (1980) in the case of having a binary response variable.The principle applied here is that when using logistic regression with conditional likelihood and having more than one observation per object, the variables that do not change values are not used in the estimation. Unfortunately this also means that a variable like gender will be omitted from the estimation. The latter problem can be solved by either splitting up the analysis in two parts according to gender or by integrating gender effects as interaction effects, wh ich is the method adopted in this paper.As the scale on which job satisfaction is measured in the present analysis consists of four ordered categories with verbal ratings, ordinal comparability can be assumed and the response variable can be recoded to a binary variable without violating any assumptions. Conditional likelihood estimation is performed using the panel 1995–2000. Supplementary ordinary regressions are completed using the cross-sectional data from 2000. Predicted probabilities are generated from the cross-sectional data. Initially, correlation analysis using Kendall Tau was performed on all explanatory variables. The correlation coef? cient was below 0. 0 except between age and tenure, and between education in years and wage. Tenure is used as a substitute for age, as the sign of the correlation between age and job satisfaction also may depend on age (Clark et al. , 1998). Educational levels were dichotomized and tested in the model as with the gender interaction terms. The full model with variables given in Table 1 and Appendix A becomes:  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd Age in years Mean Years of school Mean Std. deviation Professions Vocational training Marital status Cohabiting 39. 7 Public 13. 3 2. 57 34. 2 79. 3 35. 7 Private 995 12. 1 2. 19 53. 5  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd 74. 7 80. 8 54. 4 12. 5 2. 36 40. 9 Private 2000 81. 9 33. 7 13. 7 2. 53 44. 7 Public Net month pay Mean, DKK. Std. deviation Tenure Mean Std. deviation Gender Male Female 64. 9 35. 1 7. 0 7. 52 10,891 4,909 Private Table 1. Summary of key demographic and economic variables in balanced panel (N = 3,412) 1995 36. 6 63. 4 8. 8 8. 10 9,932 4,102 Public 65. 0 35. 0 9. 0 8. 79 13,600 4,667 Private 2000 34. 5 65. 0 11. 4 9. 64 12,123 3,541 Public 8 Lea Sell — Bryan Cleal Job Satisfaction, Work Environment, and Rewards 9 JSij = ? i + ? marriedij + ? 2 Childrenij + ? 3High school ij + ? 4Short further educationij u + ? 5 Tenureij + ? 6 Leaderij + ? 7 unemployment rateij + ? 8 Noiseij + ? 9 Physical strainij + ? 10 Influenceij + ? 11High demand-low controlij + ? 12 Job securityij + ? 13 Informationij + ? 14 Role conflict ij + ? 15Social sup port ij + ? 16 Conflict at workij + ? 17 Flexible hoursij + ? 18 Logpay ij + ? 19 Job futurei + ? 20 Recognition leaderi + ? ij . The i subscript refers to different persons and j refers to different measurements for person i, Job satisfaction (JS) is the dependent variable, a the constant, b is the vector of the coef? ients of the explanatory variables, and eij is a random error term. Questionnaire answers on job future opportunities and recognition from leaders are only available for the 2000 cross-section. The estimation method is maximum likelihood and the statistical computer programs used were SAS 8. 2 and STATA 9. 0, the logit procedure and the clogit procedure. Results are presented as factor changes in odds, expre ssing the increase in the odds of being in the group having a high degree of job satisfaction, for a one point, or level, increase in the explanatory variable. 4. ResultsIn this section we present the empirical results based on four sets of analyses. (1) Preliminary regression analyses on gender differences. (2) Main results: Estimating the probability of the outcomes being highly satis? ed with the job and being dissatis? ed with the job using conditional likelihood estimation. (3) An ordinary logistic regression analysis using only data from 2000 with addition of recognition from leaders and future job opportunities to the model. This model is used for predicting the probability of having a high level of job satisfaction when rewards are optimized and work environment factors are at unfavourable levels. 4) A fourth and last analysis has the purpose of validation of the question on job satisfaction and consists of a regression where job satisfaction as response variable is substitu ted by a question on the degree of motivation and engagement in one’s work. 4. 1 Preliminary analyses on gender differences Initially, tests for gender interaction effects are performed. For private-sector employees, social support shows both a signi? cant gender effect and a general effect on job satisfaction. For public-sector employees job security indicates a signi? ant gender effect and a general effect. In both cases being a woman increases the impact on the level of job satisfaction. The gender interaction effects are veri? ed when running separate regressions on genders still using the division on sectors. The results can be seen in Appendix B. Due to the loss of observations when using ? xed effects regressions these regressions are run on only the 2000 cross-section using ordinary logistic regression on the outcome being highly satis? ed. A few results turn out to be gender speci? : only for publicly employed men, having no education above high school level lowers t he probability of a high level of job satisfaction and having a leading position increases the probability of high job satisfaction signi? cantly. For publicly employed women only, the unemployment rate is signi? cantly and inversely related to the level of job satisfaction. Job security is signi? cant as suggested by the found interaction effects. For privately employed men and women, gender-speci? c effects are in? uence that increases the  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd 0 Lea Sell — Bryan Cleal probability of high job satisfaction for men, job security that increases the likelihood of job satisfaction for women, and being exposed to aggression at the work place, which is only signi? cant for women. Moreover, the coef? cient of social support is larger for women than for men corresponding to the results of the gender analysis. In regard to wages, the effect is large and positive for both privately employed men and privately employed women but nonsigni? cant for both genders within the public sector.As discussed in the statistical analysis section multicollinarity existed between education in years and wage. Therefore educational levels are entered as separate variables to the model. Ultimately, only having no further education beyond high school and having a short further education were statistically signi? cant (p < 0. 05) and these levels are therefore kept in the model. 4. 2 Results using conditional likelihood on the combined panel of data from 1995 and 2000 The gender interaction effects found and the two variables representing educational level are now entered in the ? al model. The results are shown in Table 2. The left section of the table shows the results when estimating the probability of having a high level of job satisfaction and the right section of the table shows the results when estimating the probability of having a low level of job satisfaction, the latter in order to test for a duality in t he impacts on job satisfaction as discussed in Section 2. Looking ? rst at the results for the economic and demographic measures, the odds of being in the high job satisfaction category are reduced with one-? th for every additional child for private employees, although the latter effect is only borderline signi? cant (p = 0. 077). This result is matched in the public sector, in the way that the odds of having a low level of job satisfaction triple for an additional child. For privatesector employees, having no more than a high school education, opposed to having an educational level above high school, nearly triples the odds of being in the high job satisfaction category and also reduces the odds of being in the low job satisfaction category, although the latter effect is only borderline signi? ant (p = 0. 063). Having a medium length or short further education nearly halves the odds of being highly satis? ed with one’s job. Educational level does not show any effects of sig ni? cance for public-sector employees. High tenure raises the odds of being in the low job satisfaction category for public-sector employees, a result not matched elsewhere. Within both sectors, the level of job satisfaction seems to be related to the size of the unemployment rate, and the scope of this relation is similar for private and public employees.The sizes of the odds indicate an 8. 3 per cent decrease in the odds of being in the high satisfaction category per per cent increase in the unemployment rate for private-sector employees and a 9 per cent decrease in the odds of being in the high satisfaction category per per cent increase in the unemployment rate for public-sector employees. In regard to occupational health factors, the public and the private sector have four factors in common: role con? cts nearly halves the odds of being in the high satisfaction category in both sectors, odd work positions decrease the odds of being in the high satisfaction category for private employees by one-third, and for public employees by nearly one-half. Increasing the level of information that concerns the work place raises the odds of being highly satis? ed by 71 per cent for privately employed and by 91 per cent for publicly employed workers. For each increase in the level of social support, the odds of being highly satis? ed increase by 58 per cent and 31 per cent, respectively. For public employees, increasing the level of in? ence increases the odds of being highly satis? ed with the job by 71 per cent, and having foreseeable job security above 12 months nearly doubles the odds of being in the high job satisfaction category. For private-sector  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1. 061 0. 811(*) 2. 881* 0. 558* 1. 009 1. 349 0. 917* 0. 525* 0. 681* 1. 045 0. 965 1. 532 1. 709* 0. 537* 1. 576* 0. 973 1. 246* 1. 698(*) 0. 755* — 0. 674–1. 672 0. 643–1. 023 1. 342–6. 186 0. 359–0. 868 0. 97 8–1. 040 0. 707–2. 573 0. 876–0. 960 0. 303–0. 907 0. 514–0. 903 0. 849–1. 292 0. 446–2. 091 0. 904–2. 596 1. 380–2. 116 0. 398–0. 23 1. 257–1. 978 0. 555–1. 705 1. 103–1. 409 0. 990–2. 913 0. 575–0. 992 — CI 1. 310 1. 047 0. 497 0. 796 0. 974 0. 460 0. 910* 0. 739 0. 579* 1. 710* 0. 595 2. 042(*) 1. 906* 0. 525* 1. 309* 0. 936 1. 035 1. 386 — 0. 150* OR ? xed 0. 639–2. 682 0. 755–1. 452 0. 153–1. 618 0. 431–1. 472 0. 932–1. 019 0. 150–1. 417 0. 858–0. 965 0. 346–1. 576 0. 358–0. 935 1. 142–2. 559 0. 058–6. 084 0. 891–4. 680 1. 355–2. 681 0. 337–0. 817 1. 092–1. 569 0. 552–1. 589 0. 850–1. 260 0. 463–4. 154 — 0. 027–0. 825 CI Public (Reg. 2) 1. 379 0. 803 0. 062(*) 0. 414 1. 046 3. 378 1. 006 3. 843* 1. 238 1. 943* 4. 482* 3. 01 2* 2. 112* 2. 247(*) 1. 496* . 825 0. 913 1. 176 — — OR ? xed 0. 360–5. 274 0. 394–1. 639 0. 003–1. 157 0. 085–2. 022 0. 951–1. 150 0. 320–35. 729 0. 906–1. 116 1. 238–11. 926 0. 653–2. 347 1. 176–3. 212 1. 425–14. 091 1. 016–8. 933 1. 222–3. 650 0. 949–5. 320 1. 059–2. 114 0. 679–4. 902 0. 641–1. 300 0. 275–5. 038 — — CI Private (Reg. 3) b 0. 744 3. 396* 11. 731 2. 327 1. 195* 0. 061 1. 017 0. 358 1. 250 3. 186(*) 0. 727 0. 939 2. 052(*) 1. 152 1. 586(*) 4. 557(*) 0. 805 1. 766 — — OR ? xed 0. 140–3. 948 1. 049–10. 993 0. 469–293. 833 0. 383–14. 120 1. 025–1. 395 0. 0 0. 861–1. 202 0. 046–2. 809 0. 573–2. 724 0. 975–10. 409 0. 071–7. 497 0. 127–6. 940 0. 96–4. 699 0. 348–3. 819 0. 936–2. 689 0. 962–21. 598 0. 372à ¢â‚¬â€œ1. 740 0. 160–19. 521 — — CI Public (Reg. 4) Low job satisfactionc Dichotomous variables. Gender interaction effects: Male = 1. c Scales are reversed for in? uence, job security, information, social support, and ? exible hours when estimating job dissatisfaction. CI: 95% con? dence interval. Signi? cance levels:(*) 0. 05 < p < 0. 10, * 0. 0000 < p < 0. 05. Number of observations: Reg. 1 = 1,200, Reg. 2 = 650, Reg. 3 = 282, Reg. 4 = 128. -log (Likelihood): Reg. 1 = 317. 1, Reg. 2 = 172. 6, Reg. 3 = 50. 8, Reg. 4 = 27. 3. Pseudo R2s: Reg. 1 = 0. 24, Reg. 2 = 0. 3, Reg. 3 = 0. 48, and Reg. 4 = 0. 38. a Cohabitinga Number of children High school or lessa Short further education Job tenure in years Leader statusa Unemployment rate 1. Noisea 2. Odd work positions 3. In? uence 4. Low control–high demand 5. Job security 1 yeara 6. Information 7. Role con? ictsa 8. Social support 9. Exposed to aggressiona 10. Flexible hours Monthly pay. Ln kr Male social su pportb Male job securityb OR ? xed Private (Reg. 1) High job satisfaction Table 2. Results from conditional logistic regression, when estimating the probability of being highly satis? ed with one’s job and being dissatis? ed with one’s job.Divided on private-sector and public-sector employees Job Satisfaction, Work Environment, and Rewards 11  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd 12 Lea Sell — Bryan Cleal employees, three additional factors have signi? cant impacts on the probability of being highly satis? ed with one’s job: noise halves the odds of having the highest level of job satisfaction; more ? exible working hours increase the odds of being highly satis? ed by 25 per cent; and ? nally the odds of log pay suggest that when log pay is increased by one unit the odds of being in the high satisfaction category increase by nearly 70 per cent.The effect is borderline signi? cant (p = 0. 054). Comparing the results from the conditional likelihood estimation with the results from the ordinary logistic regression analyses (as shown in Appendix B), a few discrepancies emerge: for publicly employed men having no more than a high school education lowers the probability of a high level of job satisfaction and having a leading position raises the probability of a high level of job satisfaction using ordinary regression analysis only. In? uence raises the probability of high job satisfaction signi? cantly for privately employed men but not when using ? ed effects analyses. For public employees, being exposed to aggression at the work place lowers the probability of high job satisfaction when using ordinary logistic regression analysis and the corresponding result from the ? xed effects regression is an increase in the probability of dissatisfaction when being exposed to con? icts. For private employees odd work positions only show an effect in the ? xed effects analysis. Looking at the results of predicti ng being dissatis? ed with one’s job several factors impact on the probability of both having a high degree of job satisfaction and being dissatis? d with the job. This is the case in the private sector for noise, information, role con? icts, and social support, and in the public sector for in? uence, information, and social support. On the other hand, being exposed to violence, threats of violence or teasing, or having a job with low control in combination with high demands only has an impact on the probability of being dissatis? ed with the job. 4. 3 Hazards and the effects of rewards on the likelihood of being highly satis? ed with the job Following the results from the regressions presented in the previous sections, pay is only a signi? ant predictor of having a high level of job satisfaction in the private sector, and did not seem to have any impact on the probability of being dissatis? ed. Within both labour economic studies and work psychology, future opportunities and recognition are also considered as rewards of work. As additional information is available on future opportunities and recognition in data from 2000, the following analysis incorporates all three types of rewards. In addition, people were asked in 1995 what they considered to be the most important aspect of their work.Of the three possible answers, 11. 2 per cent answered that the pay was good (6. 0 per cent in the public sector and 14. 8 per cent in the private sector), 58. 0 per cent answered that the work interested them (65. 6 per cent in the public sector and 52. 7 per cent in the private sector), and 30. 8 per cent answered that they got along well with colleagues (28. 4 per cent in the public sector and 32. 4 per cent in the private sector). The differences among public and private employees with regard to pay support the evidence from our analyses.However the results also suggest that alternative rewards may be considered although the capability of these rewards to compensa te for hazards in the work environment is more uncertain. The second question we have sought to investigate is whether employees exposed to hazards at work for which they receive above average rewards, when comparing with employees in non-hazardous work with average rewards, report the same level of job satisfaction. This was achieved by means of calculations of predicted probabilities. The factors tested were signi? ant predictors of both having a high level of job satisfaction and being dissatis? ed with the  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd Job Satisfaction, Work Environment, and Rewards 13 job. Initially, a regression on the 2000 cohort integrating recognition from leaders and future possibilities in the model was performed. The results from this regression are shown in Appendix C. The hazards analysed for private-sector employees are high noise, low levels of information and social support, and role con? icts. For the public sector, low l evels of information, in? ence, and social support are chosen. The results from varying the levels of these variables from their best, to their worst case, and at the same time maximizing the three types of rewards are shown in Table 3. The values in column 2 express the probability of being highly satis? ed with the job when each of the six chosen work environment factors are in their most positive position and all other variables are held constant at the mean. Column 3 shows the probability of being highly satis? ed with the job when each of the six hazards is at the most negative level.Columns 4, 5 and 6 give the probability of having a high level of job satisfaction when the individual factors are at the worst case, single rewards are at their best, and all other variables are at their mean. Having the lowest level of information gives the lowest probability of having a high degree of job satisfaction observed for private-sector employees (0. 62). For public-sector employees the likelihood of being highly satis? ed with the job when information is at the lowest level is 0. 56. This is the case when all other variables are held at an average level.Moreover, the probability of being highly satis? ed with one’s job never exceeds 0. 75 as long as information is low, which is below both 0. 81 and 0. 79, the average probabilities of being highly satis? ed with the job within the public and the private sector. Low in? uence predicts the lowest probability of a high level of job satisfaction for publicsector employees, which is 0. 56. In this case it is not possible to reach the same level of job satisfaction when having the lowest possible level of in? uence, as compared with those experiencing a high level of in? uence even if receiving maximum rewards.The same is evident for social support for employees in both sectors. In contrast, the impacts of high noise or experiencing role con? icts on the probability of having a high level of job satisfaction are, however, neutralized by either the highest level of leader recognition or future opportunities, or a high wage, being among the best-paid 2 per cent in the sample. 4. 4 Hazards and the effects of rewards on the likelihood of being highly motivated in the job The analysis made in Section 4. 3 is repeated now predicting the probability of having the highest level of motivation when the levels of in? ence, social support, and information are at their worst, individual rewards are at their best, and all other variables are at their mean. The results of this regression are shown in Appendix D. Table 4 is analogous with Table 3. The results in Table 4 are consistent with the results in Table 3, except that receiving the highest level of leader recognition now seems to compensate privately employed for a low level of social support. 5. Discussion The way work environmental and socio-economic factors related to job satisfaction was not only in terms of either increasing job satisfaction or not, i. e. eing motivational factors or not. Thus in line with Herzberg et al. ’s (1959) theory some job factors also function as maintenance factors that are only being capable of making employees dissatis? ed with the job. In addition to this, some factors only had the impact of lowering the likelihood of being highly satis? ed with the job. These could be characterized as inconvenience factors with an unsettling effect on the motivation factors.  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd 0. 713 0. 618 0. 727 0. 736 0. 563 0. 754 0. 598 . 798 0. 825 0. 881 0. 812 P(High JS) when X at its worst and the rest of the factors at their means 0. 838 0. 879 0. 829 0. 520 0. 721 0. 556 0. 804 0. 727 0. 814 0. 821 P(High JS) when Pay is at maximum, X at its worst, and the rest of the factors at the means 0. 701 0. 848 0. 730 0. 817 0. 743 0. 827 0. 834 P(High JS) when Leader Reco gnition high, X at its worst, and the rest at the means 0. 717 0. 858 0. 746 0. 815 0. 741 0. 825 0. 832 P(High JS) when Future Opportunities are high, X at its worst, and the rest at their means Probability of high Job Satisfaction for private employees when all variables at their mean: 0. 901. Probability of high Job Satisfaction for public employees when all variables at their mean: 0. 8052. Leader recognition is at its highest when the employee has answered ‘To a very high degree’ when asked: ‘Is your work acknowledged and appreciated by the management? ’ and future opportunities are maximized when the employee has answered ‘To a very high degree’ when asked: ‘Are the future prospects of your job good? ’. Private sector Noise Information Social support Role con? ict Public sector Information Social support In? uence P(High JS) when X is optimal and the rest of the factors at heir means Table 3. Probability of a high level of Jo b Satisfaction (JS) for varying levels of dissatisfaction factors and rewards (X) 14 Lea Sell — Bryan Cleal 0. 268 0. 320 0. 338 0. 408 0. 161 0. 396 0. 467 P(High M) when X at its worst and the rest of the factors at their means 0. 474 0. 532 0. 507 0. 380 0. 453 0. 187 0. 299 0. 353 P(High M) when Pay is at maximum, X at its worst, and the rest of the factors at the means 0. 443 0. 518 0. 230 0. 414 0. 476 P(High M) when Leader Recognition high, X at its worst, and the rest at the means 0. 448 0. 523 0. 233 0. 356 0. 415 P(High M) hen Future Opportunities are high, X at its worst, and the rest at their means Notes: Motivation is at its highest when the employee has answered ‘Yes, indeed’ when asked: ‘Do you feel motivated and engaged in your work? ’; 39. 2% of the private employees and 46. 3% of the public employees answer ‘Yes, indeed’. Private sector Information Social support Public sector Information Social support In? uence P(High M) when X is optimal and the rest of the factors at their means Table 4. Probability of a high level of motivation (M) for varying levels of dissatisfaction factors and rewards (X)Job Satisfaction, Work Environment, and Rewards 15  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd 16 Lea Sell — Bryan Cleal While adding to the credibility of results, many respondents unfortunately are lost when using conditional likelihood estimation as those with none changing characteristics are dropped from the analysis. When comparing the results of the ordinary regression analyses with the results using conditional likelihood estimation it did not seem that controlling for ? xed effects alters results in regard to the subjective measures used.A possible explanation is that most answers are put as frequencies of exposure during working hours leaving less room for misconceptions of the questions. About two-thirds of the results on work environment variables were comm on for public- and private-sector employees, with effects of just about the same size. Common factors were odd work positions and role con? ict, both factors lowering the probability of having a high level of job satisfaction, and information on decisions that concerns the work place and social support, of which higher levels predicted being highly satis? d with the job and lower levels predicted job dissatisfaction. Factors being speci? c for the private sector were noise and a combination of low control and high demands, whereas exposure to aggression at the work place and level of in? uence only seemed to have an effect on public employees. Being exposed to violence, threats of violence or teasing, and having a job with low control in combination with high demands are examples of maintenance factors as the extent of their impact is con? ned to negative outcomes.In accordance with our results, public employees have been shown to have an increased risk of experiencing con? icts, te asing, or threats of violence at work (see Hoegh, 2005) whereas jobs with low control and high demands are typically found on industrial work sites within the private sector. In testing the ameliorative capability of rewards to compensate for the negative effects on job satisfaction deriving from exposure to (primarily psychosocial) hazards in the work environment, our results indicated only a limited effect for this type of compensating differential.In particular, rewards could not neutralize the effects on job satisfaction when employees have low levels of information on decisions that concerns the work place, social support, or, as a result for public employees only, in? uence. Most previous studies searching for evidence of compensating wage differentials for work environment hazards have been concerned with observable occupational health hazards (see Rosen, 1986), an exception being for very stressful work (French and Dunlap, 1998). The results were duplicated and even more pro nounced when the analysis was repeated substituting job satisfaction with motivation.Where the same fraction of public employees and private employees reported being highly satis? ed with the job, there was a discrepancy among the two sectors when comparing the fraction of employees reporting to be highly motivated. Thirty-nine per cent of the private employees and 46 per cent of the public employees reported to be the highly motivated. These results also correspond to the result that more public than private employees report that the most important aspect of their work was that the work interested them (66 per cent versus 53 per cent).The differences are small but the results support the theory that public employees should have higher intrinsic motivation (Benabou and Tirole, 2006). As wages did not show any signi? cant impact on the level of job satisfaction for public employees and neither had any signi? cant compensating value in regard to certain hazards at the job, the results also point to that publicly employed workers are less motivated by high pay and place a higher value on the intrinsic rewards as also seen in Karl and Sutton (1998) and Houston (2000).Very low probabilities of having a high level of job satisfaction (0. 56) and being highly motivated at the job (0. 16) were evident for public employees with the lowest level of in? uence. This clearly suggests that lack of in? uence can demotivate public employees and points to that  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd Job Satisfaction, Work Environment, and Rewards 17 intrinsic motivation can be undermined if people feel controlled, and have little autonomy and freedom in performing work tasks (Deci and Ryan, 1985).Moreover, in the long run, lack of autonomy can pose a threat to value congruence between the employees and the organization, as suggested by Ren (2010). In regard to the results concerning gender differences, job security showed a general positive ef fect on job satisfaction as well as a gender-speci? c effect for employees in the public sector, suggesting women pursue job security more than men. For private employees, any effect of job insecurity would be dissatisfaction with the job and the size of the effect was just about the same for the two genders.In a study by D’Addio et al. (2003), job security was found to have the same effect for men and women after adjusting for ? xed effects. Without adjusting for ? xed effects, men seemingly valued job security the most. In the study by Clark et al. (1998), they ? nd that the extent to which women or men pursue job security varies among countries and that the differences are relatively small. These other studies have split the analyses on gender, which complicates comparison, and the differing time span of years over which the observations are made most ikely has an effect too. Clark et al. (1998) also ? nd that women report having good relations at work more often than men. Whereas Sloane and Williams (2000) ? nd that good interpersonal relations are most important for women. This is consistent with our ? nding that among private employees, women value social support more than men. The impact on job satisfaction from wages may also re? ect an effect of satisfaction with the job that derives from increased total expenditure opportunities as the question on job satisfaction in our study is one that re? cts overall job satisfaction. The results may also be dependent on the given wage structure as both wages and wages dispersion are lower within the public sector than within the private sector in Denmark at the time (Wadensjo, 1996). Finally, the impact on job satisfaction from the unemployment rate is large. D’Addio et al. (2003) found a similar negative correlation between job satisfaction and the rate of unemployment. In both the study by D’Addio et al. (2003) and our study, this relation is only signi? cant after controlling for ? xed ef fects.That is, apart from the result when making a separate analysis on gender and sector. It is noteworthy that the unemployment rate has these clear derived effects on the subjective feelings towards the job. According to the studies by Akerlof et al. (1988), a low unemployment rate makes it possible for unsatis? ed employees to change to jobs with more desired characteristics. Appendix A: List of work environment variables 1. Noise: Two levels according to answer to the below: 3/4 or more of the work day being exposed to noise that high that one must raise the voice to be able to speak with others. . Odd work positions: A score with a one point increase when respondents have marked a positive answer to the following questions: 3/4 or more of the working hours the work entails work with: 1. The back heavily bended forward with no support for hands or arms. 2. The body twisted or bended in the same way several times an hour. 3. The hands lifted to shoulder height or higher. 4. The neck heavily bended forward. 5. Squatting or kneeling.  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd 18 Lea Sell — Bryan Cleal 3. In? uence: Four levels; Can you plan your own work? 4.Low control–high strain: In? uence: Four levels; Can you plan your own work? Job variation: Four levels; Is your job varied? Time pressure: Recoded into two levels; 1995: Does your work entail that you have to work under time pressure in order to get certain pieces of work done? 2000: Is it necessary to work very fast? Mental demands: Does your work demand all your attention and concentration? 5. Job security: Two levels according to: (1995): Certain or pretty sure of keeping the job the next 12 months. (2000): The present job is not a ? xed-term appointment with less than 12 months left. . Information: Four levels; Are you informed about decisions that concern your work place? 7. Unclearness of role and con? icting demands: Two levels according to the consent or not of either of two statements: It is clear what my responsibility. I experience con? icting demands in my work. 8. Social support: (four levels — No support, always support from colleagues but not always from superiors, always support from superiors but not always from colleagues, always support from colleagues and superiors) 1995: Do you receive help and encouragement from your superior/colleagues? 000: How often do you receive help and support from superior or colleagues? 9. Con? icts, teasing, unwanted sexual attention, threats, or violence (two levels): 1995: Are you exposed to any form of unpleasant teasing, unwanted sexual attention, threats of violence, or violence at your work place? (Not reporting any incidents constitutes a ‘no’) 2000: Have you been exposed to unpleasant teasing, unwanted sexual attention, threats of violence, or physical violence at your work place within the last 12 months? (Not reporting any incidents constitutes a ‘noâ₠¬â„¢) 10.Flexibility of work schedule: Four levels according to the time space within a respondent can vary the daily working schedule without giving further notice. Can you change the placing of your working hours from day to day without making prearrangements, e. g. meet at work late or leave work early? 11. Recognition: Four levels: Is your work acknowledged and appreciated by the management? 12. Future opportunities: Four levels: Are the future prospects of your work good?  © 2011 CEIS, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini and Blackwell Publishing Ltd Job Satisfaction, Work Environment, and Rewards 19Appendix B: Estimating high job satisfaction on the 2000 cross-sectional data. Divided on gender Men Private (Reg. 1) Women Public (Reg. 2) Private (Reg. 3) Public (Reg. 4) Coef. Cohabitinga Number of children High school or lessa Short further education Job tenure in years Leader statusa Unemployment rate 1. Noisea 2. Odd work positions 3. In? uence 4. Low control–high demand 5. J ob security 1 yeara 6. Information 7. Role con? ictsa 8. Social support 9. Exposed to aggressiona 10. Flexible hours Monthly pay. Ln kr Standard error Coef. Standard error Coef. Standard error Coef. Standard error 0. 258 -0. 067 0. 237 0. 437* 0. 010 0. 181 -0. 011 -0. 587* -0. 176 0. 244* -0. 658 0. 087 0. 475* -0. 626* 0. 371* -0. 294 0. 175* 0. 639* 0. 1896 0. 0728 0. 1999 0. 1916 0. 0086 0. 2451 0. 0295 0. 2142 0. 1062 0. 0906 0. 4282 0. 3488 0. 0926 0. 1441 0. 0678 0. 2811 0. 0528 0. 2705 0. 1700 -0. 078 -0. 638* 0. 060 -0. 004 0. 743* 0. 010 0. 104 -0. 493* 0. 395* -0. 919 -0. 292 0. 759* -0. 578* 0. 314* -0. 732* 0. 143 0. 066 0. 2248 0. 0860 0. 2592 0. 1890 0. 0093 0. 3642 0. 0223 0. 2853 0. 1827 0. 1190 0. 6509 0. 2948 0. 1206 0. 1632 0. 0742 0. 1916 0. 0598 0. 2794 0. 307 -0. 026 0. 286 -0. 481* 0. 006 0. 348 0. 021 -0. 529(*) -0. 26 0. 121 -0. 991 0. 469* 0. 607* -0. 435* 0. 459 -0. 348* 0. 171* 0. 611* 0. 2327 0. 1004 0. 2709 0. 2177 0. 0109 0. 5299 0. 0369 0. 2808 0. 14 76 0. 1252 0. 5711 0. 3909 0. 1390 0. 2099 0. 0856 0. 2922 0. 0685 0. 2802 0. 167 -0. 015 -0. 117 -0. 1656 0. 010 -0. 267 -0. 029* -0. 044 -0. 380* 0. 247* -0. 003 0. 369* 0. 623* -0. 542* 0. 362* -0. 335* 0. 104* -0. 092 0. 1477 0. 0612 0. 1804 0. 1349 0. 0070 0. 2914 0. 0139 0. 1963 0. 1126 0. 0880 0. 5338 0. 1888 0. 0896 0. 1212 0. 0508 0. 1397 0. 0471 0. 2195 a Dichotomous variables. CI: 95% con? dence interval. Signi? cance levels: (*) 0. 05 < p < 0. 10, * 0. 000 < p < 0. 05. Number of observations: Reg. 1 = 1,356, Reg. 2 = 959, Reg. 3 = 728, Reg. 4 = 1,754. -log (Likelihood): Reg. 1 = 639. 3, Reg. 2 = 483. 2, Reg. 3 = 363. 1, Reg. 4 = 907. 1. Pseudo R2s: Reg. 1 = 0. 17, Reg. 2 = 0. 18, Reg. 3 = 0. 17, and Reg. 4 = 0. 13. Appendix C: Estimating high job satisfaction on the 2000 cross-sectional data (Reg. 1) (Reg. 2) Private (N = 2,057) Public (N = 1,296) OR Cohabitinga Number of children High school or lessa Short further education Job tenure in years Leader statusa Unemploymen t rate 1. Noisea 2. Odd work positions 3. In? uence 4. Low control–high strain . Job security 1 yeara 6. Information P>|z| CI lower CI higher OR P>|z| CI lower CI higher 1. 358 0. 934 1. 361 0. 653 1. 016 1. 252 1. 006 0. 628 0. 845 1. 121 0. 464 1. 186 1. 430 0. 042 0. 263 0. 064 0. 004 0. 024 0. 323 0. 796 0. 008 0. 058 0. 139 0. 033 0. 535 0. 000 1. 011 0. 829 0. 982 0. 488 1. 002 0. 802